A Hand That Holds No Weapon
by Windsett
Summary: On their way back to the Hong Kong Shatterdome, Newton helps Gottlieb adjust to the after effects of drifting together.


**This can be considered as just a post-melding friendship fic if you like, but it can also be read as Newton/Hermann if you prefer. I love either interpretation, and let's not forget that they just _knew_ they were Drift Compatible, and never thought about any sort of testing beforehand. **

**The title is in reference to the theory that a handshake originated as a gesture of peace, because the person instigating it held no weapon and therefore no bad will towards the other. A handshake can also indicate a recognition that increased safety and a better standard of living will result from working together.**

**Thank you for reading! **

* * *

"Why do they call it a 'neural handshake'?"

"…I beg your pardon?"

Newton leans forward, glad that he's finally caught Gottlieb's attention. "Why was it termed a 'handshake?' Why not a fist-bump, or a high-five, or a palm-slide, or-"

"A _high-five?"_

For the first time since they entered the helicopter that is gunning through the gloom to get them back to the Hong Kong Shatterdome, Gottlieb turns his head away from looking out the window to glare at the man sitting opposite him. "Those are hardly appropriate descriptors for such a complex process, _Doctor_ Geizler; please do try and pay at least _some _respect to the incredible experience we've just-"

Gottlieb cuts himself off, and turns sharply to look out the window again.

Newton sighs, but before he can continue Gottlieb has suddenly turned back and addressed him sharply again. "And in case you hadn't realised – which you quite clearly _haven't_ – we never initiated the final act of drifting anyway so therefore there _was_ no neural handshake. The same bond that Jaeger pilots make was nowhere _near_ being made, and-and for God's sake did you _really_ think you could manipulate the movement of a Kaiju? Well yes of course you thought it, since I was right there with you when-"

Again Gottlieb cuts himself off, and again Newton sighs.

Newton crosses his arms over his chest and sits back in his seat. "And in case _you_ hadn't heard me clearly – which you obviously _haven't_ – that's _not_ what I asked you. I _know_ we didn't make a neural handshake the way the pilots do; what I am asking you why it's _called_ one."

Gottlieb's mouth tightens and his eyes flicker down to his clasped hands.

Newton shakes his head softly. The day he hears Gottlieb admit out loud that he's wrong or has been mistaken is the day he gets his tattoos burned off. But Newton doesn't need to hear those words out loud to know that Gottlieb is thinking them. Not any more he doesn't.

Not since they drifted together.

The after effects of a drift hit everyone differently, both physically and emotionally. Jaeger pilots are at least somewhat prepared for what they're going to experience, but the drop can still leave them shaking and crying and puking their guts out. Newton had no established criteria to use as a flimsy guide for what he might experience when he first merged with a Kaiju brain but, like the pilots, he had felt his very bones burn with adrenaline. He also knew that the neural pathways of his brains had splintered and merged and, when they had realigned, it was into something foreign but so achingly welcome he didn't realise it was missing until he received it.

His synapses had been re-structured yet again after drifting with Gottlieb and, when those had finally settled, the welcome feeling was stronger and the ache even sweeter.

But unlike the pilots, the first merge had also left him with a dripping nose and a blossoming flower of red in one eye. He probably shouldn't have merged by himself in retrospect, but it had to be done. He _wanted_ it to be done, and everything that came after was a price worth paying.

After that first meld Newton was thrumming with adrenaline; he was shivering and shaking in that chair as Pentecost questioned him and _believed _him, and it was all so overwhelming he didn't know where it stopped and where it started. He let the physical after effects shake themselves out freely, and then channelled the emotional ones into a single minded pursuit of finding Hannibal and another Kaiju brain to merge with.

Newton knows that it's dangerous to repress the after effects of a drift.

Like anger or love or hate or fear such turbulent emotions need an outlet, or else there's a danger they'll turn inwards and consume their host. As well as being a slice of common sense, it's nothing more than a basic biological fact.

Which is why Newton is so exasperated with how Gottlieb is acting now.

Even without the lingering connection the meld has given them, Newton can see from Gottlieb's posture that the man's fighting hard to contain the swell of emotions inside of him. The other doctor sits in his seat hunched and withdrawn, like a tightly coiled spring being denied release, his dark eyes narrowed and long fingers clenched together so fiercely his knuckles are gleaming white. Yes Gottlieb threw up in a conveniently placed toilet immediately after the meld, but after his forceful outburst that the Shatterdome had to be warned that their plan wouldn't work, he had fallen silent.

They had clambered into the helicopter Gottlieb had arrived in, and Newton had been brimming with anticipation about the prospect of discussing and dissecting shared visions with his colleague – strictly professional Kaiju related ones of course – and had felt a sickening deflation when Gottlieb had curled into his chair and shut his eyes and set his mouth hard. He'd soon forced himself to look blankly out of the window, but refused to say a word until Newton had questioned him about the handshake.

Newton knows it's in Gottlieb's nature to repress strong emotions and conquer them internally, and that the man has had a lifetime of practice perfecting the skill. But he's never experienced a drift before, and has never known how it feels to want to share your emotions and passions with the rest of the world like Newton does.

Well how it feels to share _most _of your emotions and passions with the rest of the world like Newton does, and now thanks to the drift Gottlieb has these urges lapping like waves over his own buried ones.

Newton knows Gottlieb is fighting a conflicting urge to both silence and shout out what he's feeling, and that he's putting a huge amount of energy into the former in a stubborn attempt to reassert his personality over a prickling secondary one.

It's dangerous and stupid and painful, and Newton is sharing far more of what Gottlieb's feeling than he would have liked.

Newton wonders if it's best to work Gottlieb up into a frothing rage to get it out of his system. It wouldn't be difficult to do, given that he's had plenty of practice at it, and especially since he now knows even _more_ things to press a finger on that would make the tightly buttoned up scientist burst.

But he doesn't want to do it this way.

Partly because he knows that generating negative emotions produce far less effective results than positive ones, and partly because he himself doesn't want to share in the painful residue of a hot outburst, but also…but also because he simply doesn't _want_ Gottlieb to hurt any more.

So instead Newton tries again to engage him in conversation. Maybe if his colleague can latch onto the historical significance of a handshake, or how it's viewed in different cultures, or even some tedious mathematics that no doubt underpin it, then he'll be able to vent some of his swirling emotions that way.

"A handshake sounds so formal, doesn't it?" Newton presses on. "Pilots go through all that training and prep work and expectation and then the actual, incredible, physical and mental plunge of the _drift_, and the pinnacle they finally reach to cement it all is a _handshake?_"

Still no response, so Newton shifts up a gear.

"Now if _I _was in charge of naming the processes, which I should be, because I'm a freaking _genius_ and the only one who's ever melded with a Kaiju which has gotta lead to the creation of at least _three_ bridges named after me, I'd call it a-"

"First of all you are _not_ in charge of the processes," Gottlieb snaps, as his glare deepens. "A small mercy for which I'm eternally grateful, but I won't be tempted to digress; despite your gung-ho declaration of initiating a neural handshake proceeded by the countdown leading up to the meld, we didn't actually _create _a handshake. We weren't able to give life to your idiotic desire to _create_ one; your _actual,_ stupid, half-buried desire to genuinely _want_ to controla Kaiju, a failure for which I have never been more grateful to be a participant of in my entire life."

Gottlieb sits back to take a breath, while Newton tilts his head back to stare at the helicopter's low ceiling. Well at least he's got _some _of it out of his system, Newton rationalises, as he fights back the urge to shove his face in front of Gottlieb's and tell him bluntly that he's _not_ a gung-ho moron who-

He also takes a deep breath and cuts himself off. He unfolds his arms and glances back at Gottlieb, and is more than slightly mollified to find that the man is now shifting in his seat and doing a poor job of disguising how uncomfortable he feels at his outburst.

True to form Gottlieb transforms an apology into another barbed comment. "And you're _not_ the only one to meld with a Kaiju – has your memory become so poor you've forgotten what we both did mere minutes ago? I too had the delightful experience of being insidetheir gruesome heads, and it wasn't a pleasant one, was it? Informative, yes, essential certainly, but of all the things I want to see when I close my eyes it's most certainly _not_ a blue-headed beast who-"

Maybe letting Gottlieb rant _isn't_ the best way to help him.

Newton switches off for a few seconds and lets the words wash over him. If Gottlieb isn't able to release what he's feeling and channel it effectively, then it makes logical sense that he needs help to do so. And since it needs to be done as soon as possible and Newton is the only other person here, it again makes sense for him to help him.

Newton will help share this load with him.

Maybe if he leans over and grabs Gottlieb's hand he can…_transfer_? some of what the other doctor's feeling into himself? It would sort of be like a blood-letting. Or a transfusion.

Or maybe he'll be the one ending up with less blood after Gottlieb uses his other hand to punch him in the face for attempting such a thing. Newton isn't certain this would happen, but one thing he _does_ know for sure is that Gottlieb won't respond well to sudden physical contact.

Newton blinks hard and tries to re-focus, but he's more tired and strung out then he realises, and before he knows it he's being sucked back into the very recent events he's just crashed through.

Confronting Hannibal, being hurt by Hannibal, surviving a near death trap underneath the streets of Hong Kong, nearly being impaled and sucked out by a Kaiju's neon blue flowering tongue, running for his life from a baby Kaiju and then watching Hannibal die had all taken more than a bit of a toll on him.

But they had also made him into something else, and he didn't consider that to be a bad thing at all.

Saturated with fear and pain and brittle with impatience, Newton had snapped at one of Hannibal's scavenging crew to get in contact with the Shatterdome _now_, and the startled man had magicked up a fully charged phone with perfect reception. Still with the bite of authority to his voice Newton had connected to a PPDC officer and demanded that Dr. Gottlieb be flown over to him _now_ and that no, such a request _couldn't_ wait to be passed up the chain of command and no, it _couldn't _be anyone other than Gottlieb, so why don't you stop wasting time and do what I say because right now buddy your precious life _and _career are sitting right here in the palm of my hands.

Part of Newton simply wanted his rival colleague to have a front row seat at being proven wrong, but the important parts of him knew it was because Gottlieb was the only one he trusted unconditionally.

Gottlieb had clambered down from the helicopter quicker than Newton had hoped, and immediately started moaning on his phone about the numbers being wrong and the Kaiju not doing what they were supposed to have already done. But he'd still absorbed all that his colleague was doing, and factored it in with what he knew needed to be done next.

Newton had easily overridden Gottlieb's petulant complaining, and had not paused in continuing with the more important work of prepping the neural transmitter before the Kaiju's brain died. But he still absorbed every word his colleague uttered, and factored them in with the answers he wanted to get out of the mind meld.

Hermann didn't say one word about being plucked out of the Shatterdome to be dumped on a Kaiju death site and Newton didn't offer one word of explanation, but they didn't have to. They fell into their bickering rhythm as smoothly as they did wherever they were based, stubbornly holding onto their own interpretation of events but always willing and able to adapt tactics if needed to.

Without pausing – without all the hesitation Newton knew was in his voice the first time he performed it by himself – Gottlieb declared that they would have to undergo the mind meld together.

Probably the result of being fired by adrenaline and being forced down this path because all other options had been blocked off, Gottlieb calmly explained that they needed to share the neural load like the Jaeger pilots did. Underneath such a logical explanation, Newton suspected that this was the closest Gottlieb had ever come to saying that they needed to work as a team; that he _wanted _them to work as closely as the world's beloved hero pilots did.

Still off balance at this offer, Newton allowed the thought to creep into his head that he wanted this too; that he'd _always_ wanted it, but had never had Gottlieb's courage to approach it so closely. A slip of his tongue had it speaking the hopefully incredulous words of 'You would do that for me?' before he had grimaced slightly and re-calibrated his response to the blander one of 'Or…or you would do that _with_ me?'

Gottlieb didn't follow that thread even though he continued to hold it carefully, instead opting to explain his offer by means of a dry remark about certain worldwide destruction not leaving him with any other choice.

Not wanting to make Gottlieb uncomfortable, Newton in turn pushed down an urge to follow that path and covered it up with an exaggerated hand-clasp offer. Clearly over the top and designed to give Gottlieb a small taste of what he was letting himself in for Hermann responded magnificently, and gamely did his best to reciprocate.

Newton was fairly sure he wouldn't be crushed by the neural load the first time he drifted with a Kaiju. He had melded with only a part of a brain after all, which had long been preserved and scrubbed clean. But the second time was more dangerous, as he would be melding with a brain only just disconnected from its Kaiju body. He was prepared to do it himself, but he'd always hoped he wouldn't have to. It was why he'd really made sure Gottlieb was by his side before he even tried.

It was why he'd really brought along two interface helmets, when he only needed one.

"We still haven't had a proper handshake you know," Newton remarks sharply, as he drags himself back to the present. "Or even a proper hand-clasp fist-bump thing. I give you props for trying, but a blind Kajiu with its brains scooped out can see you've never done one before."

"Yes of _course _I know that," Gottlieb responds gruffly, as he eyes his colleague with what could be described as suspicion. "I know _everything _about what we've done and what we haven't done, and…" this time he trails off rather than cuts himself off, and doesn't turn away. "…it was more of a…" He swallows, and forces himself to continue. "…a well-meaning hand clasp that cemented our mutual intention to undertake a dangerous procedure that was un-tested, un-shielded and without a sterilised piece of equipment to hand for miles around. It signified _most_ of what a handshake is designed to represent."

"…most?"

Gottlieb leans forward and looks Newton hard in the eye, as he finally offers up an answer to the question he was first asked.

"I would hypothesise the neural handshake is so called because of what the final part of the drift represents; it is a culmination of what both participants have just experienced, and is a recognition of all that has been seen and shared. It's…it is a final agreement for both parties to use their melded knowledge and experiences for positive future purposes. If the foundations of trust and acceptance are _not_ there then a handshake is empty and false, but if they are there, then…then it is a promise and a hope that they can achieve something far greater together then what they could ever hope to create individually."

Newton is tempted to leave things at that and spend the remainder of the flight digesting these words, but he knows that he can't. He _knows _that Gottlieb needs more, and so he takes a deep breath and continues.

"But what he had _wasn't_ a handshake though," Newton says slowly and with thick regret. "We've _never _had one. In all the years we've been working together we've just…_drifted _through each posting together, each lab and conference and that's not a bad thing as you well know, it's just…"

Not normal? Newton ponders. But then again their interactions have never been what the man on the street would call normal. Unique operating practices are something he welcomes, but he's recently learnt that even he craves a bit of stabalising tradition every now and again.

"Even the first time we met – remember that?" Newton continues quickly. "In that leaky lab the other side of the Pacific? When this all began? I was already there, hard at work, up to my elbows in glorious Kaiju guts, and you swung the door open with a bang, trundled in, took one look at me and the conditions you were expected to work in, cleared a line of vials from the bench with your stick in a rage a two-year-old would be proud of, before letting rip at that poor bastard who'd guided you in that this was a disgrace, that this was unacceptable, and that you were going to make the biggest complaint the PPDC had ever seen in its entire sorry excuse of an existence."

Gottlieb slumps at that, and his gaze shifts away. "…no, that...that wasn't the most courteous of introductions."

"You can say that again! You looked at me like _I_ should have been the one being dissected."

"You're not wholly devoid of blame don't forget!" Gottlieb snaps back. "Before I could set one _foot_ back out of the door, you'd treated me to a veritable smorgasbord of insults and cutting remarks I still shudder to recollect."

Newton fidgets at that, and knows he's already looking suitably abashed before he's even had a chance to think about how to contort his features appropriately. "Yeah, all that I…I didn't mean it. Well maybe _some_ of them – well actually most of them if I'm being truthful – but only back then though, because that was then and this is now and…and I don't mean them now Hermann. I could _never_ mean them now."

A bit more emotional and definitely a bit closer to the truth than Newton had intended, but before he can prepare himself for embarrassment or to apologise for daring to use the man's precious first name again, he sees that his words have worked near perfectly.

A large amount of tension has suddenly drained away from Gottlieb, who's now reclining almost comfortably in his seat. His fingers have loosened their iron grip on each other, and now lay limp and tangled in his lap. "That…thank you Newton, that…that means, if you'll forgive the employment of such common parlance, quite…quite a lot." Gottlieb bows his head to study his fingers intently, as he waits in expectation for what his colleague will say next.

"…then let's shake on it."

Before he can help himself, Gottlieb jerks his head up quickly and keenly and sees the other doctor regarding him carefully. Or is that warmly? But before he can complete his analysis his eyes flicker down from Newton's face to his right hand, which has appeared outstretched in the small space before them.

"…shake on it?" Gottlieb repeats dumbly, as he feels his own hand twitch.

"It's about time we had a proper handshake. Put an end to a lot of things as well as make a start on some more." Newton allows himself a soft grin. "And I'm also right when I say you want one, aren't I? Yeah, I'm always right."

Gottlieb doesn't answer in words, and instead chooses to take a deep breath as he mulls it all over. He eventually converts it into a sigh, long and loud, as he looks at Newton like he's indulging an annoying child that won't stay quiet until it's been placated.

But there's a gleam of something in his face, and his right hand extends smoothly until his fingers tips are parallel to Newton's own. They're in steady alignment, but not yet touching.

"Would you like us to pay homage to the correct forms of address one usually vocalises when an introduction is made, or may we be excused such traditions given that we already know far more of each other than just our legal surnames and formal salutations?" Gottlieb says this with a straight face, but there's a lilt to his voice and a brightness to his eyes.

Newton grins widely at that. "Whatever you say, Hermann." He watches Gottlieb's eyes drift back down to the proffered hand and then flick up and around it, drinking in the perfect lines and bold colours inked onto his arm, even though he knows Gottlieb memorised them a long time ago.

"…I say that this was indeed a long time coming," Gottlieb continues softly, carefully. "And…and that while you'll _never_ be always right Newt, this is one of those rare times that you actually are."

Newton slips his hand forward into Gottlieb's effortlessly, and squeezes his thumb and fingers gently. The gesture is returned immediately, and their hands lock into place as if they had been designed to.

Newton shakes their clasped hands up and down carefully, and feels a warmth radiate from the centre of his palm that crawls all the way up his arm and settles comfortably into his chest, as Gottlieb finally gives in and actually _grins_ as he shakes back.

"You may have been right to continue with your attempts to merge with the Kaiju," Gottlieb graciously concedes. "But if it hadn't been for _my _idea to join you, then I fear I would have been stepping over a pool of congealed blood on my way back to this helicopter."

"Don't be so melodramatic," Newton scolds half-heartedly. "Always looking on the negative side, aren't you?"

"I am a _realist._"

"You're a number nerd who gets hand cramp from writing on chalkboards when there are half a dozen computers you could be using." Newton tilts his head almost warily. "Aren't you worried about doing yourself some damage?"

Gottlieb half rolls his eyes. "Now who's the one being melodramatic? The only thing we need to worry about is how quickly Pentecost will believe our findings about the Breach."

"You might worry about that but I'm not; just sit back and relax Hermann, because I've got it all figured out."

"I very much doubt that."

"Yeah? I bet my plan's better than anything _you_ could cook up."

"_Again, _I very much doubt that."

They spend the rest of the frantic flight in easy argument over the best way to tell Pentecost that he's wrong; that the Breach will scan the Jaegers and refuse them entry, and that the only way in is to ride a Kaiju into it. The pilots must make their own physical bond with a Kaiju, and understand that it will be a brutal and necessary one if they want to pierce the Breach and drop their nuke into it.

Newton is all for getting on the intercom right this second to warn the Shatterdome Control Room, but the helicopter's radio is down and Gottlieb has somehow managed to lose his phone. So in frustration he declares that as soon as they touch down they'll race into the Control Room, grab Pentecost by the collar, and demand that he listen to them and change the plan right here right now because he's wrong and they're right.

Gottlieb makes a face of exasperated disgust at this suggestion, and instead points out why it's such a stupid idea to address a man of rank like that. His voice is loud and fast and his articulation perfect, as he effortlessly breaks down their findings and arguments into logical pieces that can be systematically fed to the officers in the Control Room that, believe it or not, _don't_ contain threats or insults or arrogant self-declarations of genius.

Seven minutes later the helicopter finally lands, and the door is slid open to reveal a blur of chaos played out against a dark backdrop of lights. Men and women rush about yelling orders and relaying news, as the roar of the elements drowns out the helicopter's engine. The ground technician who's opened the door screams above the roar of the rotating blades that some of the Jaegers are gone, and that Pentecost himself is piloting one with Chuck Hansen, and that they're almost at the Breach and if they don't get that nuke down there soon we'll all be goddamn Kaiju food and won't you please get the hell out of the chopper right this second 'cause I've got a million and one other things to be getting on with thank you.

Newton and Gottlieb share a glance, the former raising an eyebrow as the latter purses his lips. Newton winks and Gottlieb rolls his eyes, as they silently agree on whose course of action is the best one to take.

Seven minutes and thirteen seconds later the helicopter's rotors stop, and they finally break their handshake.

The shaking itself stopped a while back, but the contact hadn't been lost.

Fingers uncurl and palms slide free, as they both feel a twinge at the loss of contact. They fumble to release their harnesses, and rise up into a crouch. Another look is shared and another silent truth acknowledged, as they both allow their lips to curl upwards before they're tugged back into place. They launch themselves out of the helicopter, hands braced on the sides to steady their impact, Newton jumping out first and Gottlieb stumbling slightly after him but not falling, because there's a familiar hand on his shoulder steadying him for only a second longer than necessary.

And the next thing they know they're moving as fast as they can along the landing pad, with a destination and purpose so clear in their minds they don't ever need a drift to see it.

Seven minutes and eighteen seconds later their first handshake has ended, but the clock for so much else has just been started.


End file.
